Twinkle Toes

Noe is in her second year of ballet classes now. She has been dancing since she was born though. This little girl loves music and she just feels the beat and has to move to it. Her classes are a fun way for her to learn some technique, but mainly to enjoy time with her friends. Many girls from Ms. Yamazaki's class this year and Ms. Paetzold's class last year are with her in Ms. Julie's ballet class each Wednesday. They're all just so cute in their little ballet shoes and leotards.



The wonderful thing about this little girl is that she is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside!

Inclusion

The kids were playing quietly in Noe's room so I went to check on them. Kaleb and Noe were reading their power touch books, and there was little Gavin with them. He can't stand on his own yet, so Noe was supporting him so he could be included in their play. What sweet siblings!

The Apple doesn't fall far from the Tree?

Last year Kaleb started playing sports, soccer. They were short on coaches, so Len rose to the occassion. Len grew up playing basketball with his dad coaching him, so he said he would give soccer a try for Kaleb. This year Kaleb is signed up to play all 3 sports at school: t-ball, soccer, and basketball. I'm so proud of Leonard because he also signed up to coach all of the sports as well. This will be wonderful memories for both of them!

Crush

Last Saturday, Kaleb and Noe went to their friend, Tansy's birthday party. Afterwards, Kaleb casually tells us that he kissed a little girl, Elina two times there. There's another little girl at school, Minji who just loves Kaleb and draws him pictures everyday. So I asked him, "how do you think Minji will feel that you kissed Elina?" He replied, "it's ok, I can kiss her too." We've got to nip this in the bud, so I tell him "no kissing until you're 21!" Noe then confesses that last year on the school bus, she and Ryan used to kiss, and she professed her love for Finn. A little boy who moved away in the summer, but he was the first boy to have a crush on her. I explain that Kaleb can like lots of different girls, and Noe can like lots of different boys, and they can even hug them, but I reiterate "no kissing until you're 21!" They just laugh at me.

It made me remember some of my school day crushes, so I wanted to make a little list:
Bart Longson (Kindergarten, Eagle Elementary)
Matteo Almanderas (3rd Grade, EW Griffith Elementary)
Matt Wilkinson (4th Grade, Cyril S Wengert Elementary)
Jeff Strain (5th Grade, Cyril S Wengert Elementary)
John Bigelow (6th Grade, John C Fremont Jr High)
Mike Foster (8th Grade, John C Fremont Jr High)
Dean Badillo (9th Grade, Las Vegas High School)
Conrad Kolba (10th Grade, Las Vegas High School)
Adrian Zitzmann (BYU days)
Yes, I was always boy crazy until I found the best crush:
Leonard Reil (my wonderful husband that I get to spend the rest of my life and eternity with)

Rub-a-dub-dub...not in the tub

Saturday morning we were running late and I didn't have time to give Gavin his bath, so I put him in the shower with daddy. He loved it!

Afterwards I tried to get a picture of him bundled up like a Jedi in his towel, but he just kept crawling towards me. Cute baby that I love, loves me too!

Super Model

I am not a "showbiz" mom, but my kids do model. One month after we moved here we were approached by 3 different agents on the same day. A week after that the kids were called for their first job. Our first year here Kaleb and Noe did 17 catalogs. Last year they only did 9, since they started school I turned a lot of jobs down. This year they did their first Fashion Show for Taipei Fashion Week (Taiwan's version of New York Fashion Week), and it was so fun! And this year so far they have done 1 catalog job each, including Gavin- I can not wait to get his! Today I got back 2 for each of my big kids, so I had to share.



Noe is the Cover Girl for Moda In Baby New York, isn't she sweet?
Check out their website for more pics during the Autumn/Winter season here: http://www.modainbaby.com/index.htm Even though it's in Chinese, don't be afraid to click on the 4 different links to see the catalog.



Stylin' Kaleb in World Polo.

Lots of our friends from church and school model too, so it's so fun to do a shoot with them and to have their pictures in the catalogs too. It's also been cool to see Kaleb and Noe on billboards all over the island. The kids make $1000NT an hour ($30US), so their savings accounts are growing nicely. Mommy loves it for all of the beautiful pictures. The only question is: who keeps the catalogs when they grow up?

I'm on Space!

Kaleb and Noe have really been in to playing tag we each other after school. It's kind of hard with only 2, and they always play inside our apartment, even though I constantly remind them they can go out in our backyard (which is a luxury here in Taiwan). Anyway, whenever they play tag, all I hear from the child being chased is "I'm on Space!" as they grab any piece of furniture near them as their "base." I hope they never outgrow the "space" though.

Sleep Deprived

Kaleb & Noe didn't sleep through the night until they were 19 months. However, once they did they were great. Kaleb had occassional wetting accidents, but he has since out grown that and sleeps like a champ. Even if he gets up in the night to use the bathroom, he goes back to bed on his own. Noe did great for 3 years, but after we came back from our summer vacation last year she started waking up every night and waking Len & I up too. We finally broke her of that habit, then went on vacation this summer. We've been back for 2 months and she has been waking up about twice each night again. The frustrating thing is she usually just comes into our room and asks me or Len to take her back to bed. Sometimes she has to go to the bathroom, and lately she's been wanting to sleep on the couch after she gets up. She's so sweet and prays each night that she will sleep through it, and I want to be there for her to give her security, but it's just hard because Gavin has yet to sleep through the night ever! He's 10 months old now, shouldn't he have outgrown this by now? I was hoping once he started eating solid foods he would be better, nope! He eats solids at least 3 times a day, sometimes 4, and he's still waking up to nurse 2-3 times a night. I don't think he's hungry, it's just habit. I want him to sleep and it makes me nervous about weaning him after his first birthday. I want to get my body back a little bit to prepare for having a 4th baby. Any sleep or weaning tips out there?

Faux moche (pronounced fo mawk)

Today is Gavin's 10 month birthday- whoo hoo! I need to take his "puppy" pictures still, but I was reviewing the pics on my camera and the most recent were from his 9 month session with mom. How sad that a whole month went by without me taking more pics. I think this blog will help me get back on track. Anyway, here's one of him with puppy at 9 months.




When Kaleb and Noe' were babies, I took them to get their portraits taken every 3 months. Poor Gavin has to put up with mommy's amateur shots at home. For his 9 month session, Len & I decided to put his hair in a mohawk, or more accurately a faux hawk, but I always mispronounce it and call it a faux moche. Here's a couple pics of our little football player and future Mr. President.





This baby is just delicious!

School Pictures

This little man is just growing up too fast! Here is his Senior Kindergarten picture compared with his Junior Kindergarten picture. He is such a smart little boy and has become quite the ladies man. Each week when I'm at the school I hear soft little voices say, "Hiya, Ka...leb!" followed by little giggles. I hope he doesn't break too many hearts.

Our little princess is just a darling girl. She is as sweet as a honey pot, but also as silly as a goose! She is learning so much and so quickly. She has already experienced "girl" syndrome (where one day you have a best friend, and the next you don't), but she always handles herself well. I love to hear her sing "(Enter boy name here) and (Enter girl name here) sitting in a tree, K - I - S - S - Y - & - Z," too cute.

32

I'm a little bit COUNTRY and a little bit ROCK & ROLL! I wanted to make a list of a few of my favorite things. Since I'm 32 years old, I thought that was a good number of things to name. Here goes: I LOVE...
1. being Leonard's muse
2. playing games with Kaleb
3. dancing with Noe'
4. snuggling with Gavin
5. ALL of our extended families
6. making new friends
7. keeping in touch with old friends
8. anything artistic-
9. such as painting,
10. scrapbooking,
11. beading,
12. interior decorating (I'm a Candice Olson wannabe),
13. photography,
14. designing my dolls
15. lots of COLOR
16. reading good books
17. visiting cool libraries
18. the TV show Lost
19. working out to Gwen Stefani CDs
20. empire-waisted shirts (great for camouflaging my mother-of-twins tummy)
21. that pants aren't fitting well (they're actually getting too big, instead of too little, yea!)
22. a touch of glitzy make-up
23. funky shoes
24. sparkly jewelry
25. The Children's Place clothes for my kids
26. Leonard in Polo shirts (the style, not the brand- plus it means it's Saturday since he wears a shirt & tie the other 6 days of the week)
27. cheesecake
28. bubble baths
29. going on leisurely walks with my family when the weather's nice
30. swimming
31. getting fun mail
32. living in different countries (lived in USA, England, Canada, and Taiwan now- hope to live in South America, Australia, and Africa too)
33. Disneyland
34. Castles
35. the beach
36. Cirque du Soleil
37. all of the HOLIDAYS
38. fall leaves
39. winterlude
40. spring flowers blooming
41. summer vacation
42. the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life
43. that I am a princess, because I know I am a daughter of God
44. serving in the beautiful Temples
45. hearing my kids sing
46. hearing my kids laugh
47. the scent of coconut suntan lotion
48. being organized
49. toys (it's so fun to live vicariously through my kids)
50. Hallmark ornaments
51. Nativity sets from around the world
So my brainstorm went past 32. Part of my obsessive compulsive self wants to now push the list to 100, but another part of me wants to be risky and just leave the list at 51.

Introduction

So I have loved art since I drew my first smiley face when I was 3 years old. I got my first journal when I was 8 years old, and have written everyday since before my 15th birthday. For Christmas when I was 9, I got my first camera. I tinkered in scrapbooking as a teenager, but plunged in after I got married at 21. I made 8 1/2 x 11 albums then. In 2004 I decided that I would start making 12 x 12 albums starting in 2005. However, that Christmas I got my first digital camera. I did start the 12 x 12 albums, but only for our professional pictures (yearly family ones, kids' baby, school, sports, dance, etc.) I stumbled across Kodak picture books and decided to make those for all of our snapshots. Recently my friend told me that you can have your blogs bound into books. That sounded really cool, more personal than Kodak picture books, but still easier than full-blown scrapbooking. I had started something on MySpace, but didn't get very far. Leonard started something on FaceBook, and got a little bit farther. So now, here I am starting our first real blog with Blogger. My plan is to get it up and running now, so I can send out our link with our Christmas card this year. Once 2008 starts my goal is to update it at least weekly. Hopefully by the end of the year I'll be able to turn all of the posts into a bound book. By the way, any leads on how to do that, Natalie, anyone? One more thing, I'm actually posting this 15 hours ahead of the time it is showing. It's Tuesday, October 16th, about 12 noon. For some reason, it's posting in the Pacific time zone, showing that it's still Monday, October 15th, about 9:00 pm. I'll have to have my hubby try and fix that for me.